"But Mary Dawson said she wasn't sorry when her stepmother died, and she wouldn't tell a story about it. Her stepmother wasn't much crosser than Mrs. Reed. You know Mrs. Dawson wouldn't let the girls go to singing-school, and she made them wear their outgrown dresses, and she did whip them dreadfully. I couldn't have been sorry either." "But it would be awful not to have any one sorry when you were dead." "I think," began Josie, gravely, "we ought to act so people _will_ be sorry. If you are good and kind, and do things pleasantly--Mrs. Reed is always doing; but I guess it is a good deal the _way_ you do. You see mother and father do think of the things we like, when they are right and proper. They show they love us and like to have us love them in return." "Oh, I just couldn't live without mother!" and the tears overflowed Tudie's eyes. "And I know it would break her heart, and father's, too, if they lost us. And so we ought to try and make each other happy. I mean to think more about it. And, oh, Tudie, if Mrs. Reed could be converted! People are sometimes when they've been very ill. Suppose we pray for that." They did heartily; and Josie resolved not to miss one night. It would make bonny Prince Charlie so happy to have his mother changed into a sweet, tender woman. Charles didn't dare pray for that. God knew what was best for any one, and He _did_ have the power. He wondered what things were right to put in one's prayers. Some years after he came to know it was "all things," just as one might ask of a human father, knowing that sometimes even the father after the flesh, in his larger wisdom, saw that it was best to deny. "Don't you want to look in on your mother?" Cousin Jane said the next morning. He had not seen her in several days. "Oh, yes," answered Charles. Mrs. Reed had been thin before; but now she looked ghostly, with her sunken eyes and sharpened nose and chin. Charles had a great desire to kiss her; but she did not approve of such "foolishness." Her poor skeleton hand, that had done so much hard and useless work, lay on the spread in a limp fashion, as if it would never do anything again. Charles took it up and pressed it to his cheek. Mrs. Reed opened her eyes, and a wavering light, hardly a smile, crossed her face. "I've been very sick," and, oh, how faint the sound was, quivering, too, as if it had not the strength to steady itself! And then the thin lids fell. The death-like pallor startled him. "But you're going to get well again." The boy's sweet, confident tone touched her. She did not dare open her eyes, lest she should cry, she was so weak. Then he said, "Good-morning," and went softly out of the room, feeling that he was glad in every pulse of his being that God had given her back to them.